Laws of Impermanence
ShortStory 3,839 words Recommended by 1 award/anthology source
"It is said that Archimedes was asked by the King of Syracuse to authenticate a manuscript. King Hiero had received what purported to be Alexander of Macedon’s own copy of the Iliad, brought out from the Library at Alexandria itself. He sent envoys to Egypt to ask whether Alexander’s Iliad had indeed ever been housed there, and whether it was now gone missing. In the meanwhile, he hoped that Archimedes could shorten the task by assessing the provenance of the scrolls by inspection."
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-onesuicide
Quasar links out; the story lives on Uncanny, where the author gets the click.